Anomaly #30 :: Fiction

FEATURED IN THIS FOLIO:

INTRODUCTION

What do we seek in a crisis? Escape and connection. Two seemingly disparate movements, away from and toward, this is precisely what we find in story. And these four stories deliver. They were created in a time prior to COVID-19, and yet in them we find echoes—the strangeness, the surreality—of our present moment.

In John Abbasi’s “Angel Hair,” a heartbroken narrator finds sustenance, solace, and communion in the carnage resulting from traffic accidents.

In Monica Macansantos’s “An Unexplained Kindness,” a son and mother clash in their perspectives on the uncertainty of political revolution.

In both stories, strangely, people find clarity in bowls of soup. In Feliz Moreno‘s “In the Corners,” the narrator cares for her elderly tia, cleaning the house and sweeping up the carcasses of ghost spiders that only she can see, tiny arachnids invading every crevice of their home, infecting her very consciousness.

In Dara Passano’s “The Circuit,” the characters Raj and Chita pause to question the result of their nearly-complete circuit; their thoughts seem relevant and hopeful in our own reality:

“What do you think will happen?”

“I have no idea. Do you?”

“No idea. It could be the end of the world.”

“Or the beginning of a better world.”

These stories remind us of loss and love and what might yet be. And that, of course, is precisely what good stories do; they transcend space and time to deliver us beautifully to ourselves and one another.